


Being In Love, You Know, It's Not Like Having a Canary In a Cage

by Iamasortofvillain



Category: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/F, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:41:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamasortofvillain/pseuds/Iamasortofvillain
Summary: Some before and in-between moments./Bits and pieces of imaginary life Heloise and Marianne could have had.
Relationships: Héloïse & Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), Héloïse/Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56





	Being In Love, You Know, It's Not Like Having a Canary In a Cage

**Author's Note:**

> When Marianne kisses her, it's gentley and with promises upon her lips.
> 
> Heloise can taste wine and barries on her tongue, tastes that linger in her own mouth, long after their kiss is broken.
> 
> Marianne kisses her slow and terrified and honest, like she can't help herself.
> 
> (Like she isn't sure if Heloise is going to kiss her back).
> 
> Marianne kisses her sad and brave and beautiful.
> 
> (Heloise can't bring herself to think of the time when all this will ends).
> 
> -

i.  
She is ten and she likes birds and Françoise and mathematics. She doesn't like having her hair combed, she doesn't like cheese and she doesn't like sitting at home when the snow is fresh upon the ground and the world is frozen.

(Her mother scolds her, but makes sure to leave all sorts of books in all sorts of visible places. Heloise thinks it's her mother's secret way of encouraging her).

.

She is twelve and some friends of her mother's visiting from Paris. They are a big family of five beautiful sisters and two stout brothers and a father who is as grave looking man as one can imagine. He has a clean jaw and a pare of fierce eyes that all his children possess as well.

Heloise doesn't like him.  
  
The eldest daughter gazes at her over their supper bowls and laughs in the drawing room and plays the piano. Her fingers are fast and confidend and when she bids Heloise goodnight it's with her hand on Heloise's hip and with hot, lingering mouth upon her cheek.

.

She is fourteen and she kisses Marie in the shadows of the trees, near the convent. Her heart is pounding in her chest, her mind is cloudy, her breath is catching in her throat.

"You mustn't talk about what happened," Marie tells her once they are back inside. "Ever".

She says this in a sort of terror, in a hushed whisper, so low and quiet, Heloise can barely hear her.

"Whyever not?"

Marie's eyes are huge and terrified and pleading and Heloise looks at her with confusion and disappointment and something like heartbreak.

(Marie never looks at her again the same way and Heloise learnes that there is something unnatural about the way she feels).

(She doesn't talk about it).

.

She is sixteen and curious. The convent is quiet with vows of silence and no one is talking. As she trudge through the empty halls, she thinks about how she doesn't believe in god, or in something holy, how the nuns must be disappointed in her, and how she longs for being somewhere else.

She think (she believes) that she will never kiss another girl ever again.

She thinks she will never be anything other than what she is right now, at this moment (bored and angry and alone).

The anger is easy to evoke. It's familiar and hot and makes her want to scream. When the bubbling feeling rising in her, painting her world red, she locks her jaws and fists her hands and tries to stay quiet.

.

(She wants to scream).

.

She is eighteen and she holds her head high and sets her mind on enjoying the music at the church, and the books in the library and the soft, loving hands, of the nuns.

(Her own mother's hands were never this soft).

(The women at the convent are of a gentle kind, and their gentleness calms Heloise's chaotic nature. They plant seeds and sew clothes and teach her how to cook a proper meal. They talk about Jesus as if he walks the convent's halls, and sing their prayers. They read books and they study the bible and they kiss and caress Heloise, as if she were a child, or a kitten).

(They take pride in the hunger they see in her bright, fierce eyes).

.

Heloise is twenty one and being alive never felt so tedious, so exhilarating.

so exhausting.

So sure.

.

She is twenty-four when she recieves a letter from Françoise. It's sad and the ink is smudged with tears. The words are wild and scary and she apologises for things beyond Heloise's understanding.

("Forgive me. Please. Please, forgive me").

Heloise longs and longs and longs to be able to hold her sister in her arms. To understand.

(Now, she never will).

.

She is twenty-four when her mother summons her back home, dark circles around her eyes, darker expression on her face.

.

She is twenty-four when her world falls apart.

ii.  
She is ten and she likes books and fresh paint and the smell of her father's hands when he returns home from his studio. She doesn't like being called cute names, and she doesn't like the sniggering boys on the dirty (beautiful) streets of Paris and she doesn't like the magistrate.

(Her father never talks about it and soon she forgets).

.

She is thirteen and a girl who's name she can't remember gives her a flower and kisses her on the corner of her mouth, somewhere dark, on one of Paris' many bridges, in the middle of the summer.

(She can't walk past this bridge without getting a little warm, even when she's older and knows better).

.

She is fifteen and the marquise De Mortemart strokes her hair with fondness and tells her she's beautiful. She takes her stained fingers and guids her hand between the folds of her dress. The maquise's flesh is hot and slick and burnning and when Marianne strokes her, she sighs and gasps and trembles.

(She doesn't care about the marquise's kisses).

(Instead of beautiful, Marianne wants to be called talanted).

.

She is eighteen and she already knows the affect she has on people of certain class. She's dark and tall and slender and she's pretty enough to keep her models focused.

With her father's guidance she makes a name for herself. She paints portraits of noble women and late at night she recreates scenes from the greek mythology.

(She isn't very original, but the submissions keep on coming in a pleasent rate and it makes her father proud).

.

She is nineteen and takes special pleasure in some of her models.

("Kiss me, Marianna!" Says the russian noblewoman and she is more than happy to oblige).

("Look at me one more time, like you did before" pleads the youngest daughter of a vicomte, when her portrait is done and Marianne is drying her paintbrushes. She smiles kindly and takes the girl's hand in hers and kisses her knuckles and makes her blush).

("Like this..." sighs the girl with the red mouth when Marianne puts her hand between her legs and reaches inside her. "Like this. Like this").

Her father regards her carefuly. "What you are doing," he tells her, face grim and worried. "Is dangerous".

(He doesn't talk about the law, or God's word. He watches his little girl blossom into a beautiful woman and he is terrified).

Marianne hangs her head low and says she understands. Her father kisses her cheek and looks pleased.

It hurts her to lie to him but she can't help hereslef but be a little rebellious.

("Isn't it forbidden?" Asks August.

"It is".

"If I do this, you mustn't colour." 

He's a black-haired boy of seventeen and his arms and upper body match his trade. When he stands before her and strips down naked, she eyes him firmly and wills her cheeks to stay cool).

(It is late already and dark and she sketches and sketches and sketches in the faint candle-light. She makes him turn and turn about, raise his arms, stretch his legs, tilt his head back. When he tries to kiss her she moves back, and he makes a stummering apology).

(She kisses him on the third night of their secret meetings, but his kiss doesn't sting. It doesn't steer her).

.

She is twenty one and she travels to Milan, she paints beautiful girls with ribbons in their hair, she learnes twisting her tongue around foreign sounding words, she enjoys the freedom of her trade.

.

(She is twenty two and back in Paris).

(She is twenty two and she tastes a man's love for the first time and she cries and cries and cries when the cut-wife puts her tools inside of her and twists).

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody. Thank you for taking the time to read my silly little stories.
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
